Case Studies: C++

Telemedicine, using technology to bring doctors and patients together efficiently over distance, is a rapidly growing field. Since 2008, Saturn Systems has provided core software development and quality assurance services to industry leaders. Our projects range from medical device communications and integration, to online calendar management. Saturn Systems’ unique skills mix of device control and enterprise application development are the perfect fit for the industry.

Saturn Systems was a contracted by a major auto parts supplier to enhance a legacy software system used to run several distribution centers. The software was originally developed in C and the exact version of source currently in production was unclear. Saturn engineers combed through a mix of source archives, including extraction from a crashed hard drive, to develop a base version that matched all existing functionality. From that source base a buildable modern environment was created and a variety of new features, including wireless printers and new scanner functionality, were added and deployed.

Electronic blood glucose meters are used by diabetics to accurately track blood sugar levels. They are used by doctors in telemedicine to track a patient’s daily and long term ability to manage these levels. Available meters communicate with a PC using either serial or USB communications. Saturn Systems has developed and integrated drivers for a number of these devices, each of which has a unique communications protocol.

Saturn Systems engineers integrated a Bluetooth compatible medical device, in this case a bathroom scale, with an existing telemedicine platform. Integrating new Bluetooth devices with the platform in the future will be a matter of developing the necessary driver code to communicate with the device using its protocol and plugging that into the newly developed Bluetooth infrastructure.

Saturn Systems was contracted to develop a C# .NET based driver to communicate with an ANSI 12.19 compliant smart meter over general packet radio service (GPRS). The resulting driver had to be integrated with an existing parser to produce readable data for inclusion in a database. The project required our engineer to quickly understand the depth and complexities of the ANSI 12.19 protocol as well as an undocumented custom parser module. The project resulted in a robust, object-oriented driver framework and common data link layer that supported protocol enhancement and meter specifics. The parser code was also abstracted to support generic 12.19 parsing as well as the easy addition of meter specific data parsing. All code was developed and tested using a custom driver application used to exercise all features and functions supported by the driver.